Asia Alpha and Styx Pieces of Eight Audio Fidelity SACDs

So I guess you didn't look on CD Japan's website before you bought the 2016 discs? It says 2016 remaster for all of them except Paradise Theater for some reason. Still I would think the 2016 remasters would be better sounding then the 2009 discs. It's too bad the 2016 remasters sound very similar to the old 80's CD's. I'm hoping Kevin goes in a different direction from his remaster of Grand Illusion and knocks Pieces of Eight out of the park.

 

I will be picking up both of these

 

I'm curious about how Alpha will sound with Mr. Grey's mastering...

 

Very interested in Alpha.....is it possible that this will strip the reverb away or is that something they did pre mastering and unchangeable. Love the songs and album but the sonic quality it is very noticeable....

 

I may pick these up. I love Pieces of Eight, and Alpha is the second best Asia album.

 

I would think the reverb is in the final flat stereo master.

 

I'm with you....I love that album. I play it a lot.

 

After getting excited hearing about the upcoming Alpha SACD I finally decided to order a copy of the Asia gold disc mastered by Kevin Gray. Got a good used copy for $40, not too bad. Compared to my original Asia Geffen cd, the gold disc is a huge improvement! It is better than I expected and I'm glad I finally got it. Every aspect of the sound is improved with excellent detail and balance to all instruments and vocals. One of my new favorite Audio Fidelity discs!

 

Thinking this as well. As an early digital recording, something must of went way wrong...

 

Great news! PO8 is my favorite Styx album.

 

It's an analog recording.

 

Oops, digitally mixed

 

Given that, is there any chance Kevin is working from anything other than a 44.1/16 limited source? It can still be an improvement over previous CD issues due to the mastering, but I'm wondering if there will be any "hi-rez" benefit at all with this release.

From the back of my CD:

Recorded and Mixed...on 48 Tracks (two Studer A-800s), SSL Computerized Console and Digitally Mixed on the JVC BP90 Digital System.

 

Come on. You know you're getting both discs.

 

At least with the self titled the mix and master used were good enough to where Gray could improve it over the original Geffen CD (which honestly still sounds good). "Alpha" on the other hand is going to need a freaking miracle for the existing mixdown master to sound even remotely decent. To my ears it sounded like added reverb was added to the master and Wetton's normally punchy bass is EQed down (along with nearly anything I'm guessing 300hrz and below). I am hoping Gray can find where Wetton's missing bass is that alone will make his remaster worth getting for me. The album sounds pretty hollow to me with the bass being nearly not there.

 

It comes down to a few things with Alpha. The mix is terrible. Nothing is defined in the mix. Now Mike Stone who produced it does like a lot of reverb but he normally uses it quite effectively. This time there is so much reverb and no definition of instruments that I think the only thing that could save it would be a remix. Plus the sound is thin as well. Howe was not happy with the release as his guitar parts in many songs are very low in the mix and Downes 'keyboards are very high in the mix. That would be great if Kevin could use some of his mastering magic and make it sound a lot better but I just don't see that happening. I think the best engineers in the world couldn't do much to make it sound better.

 

Nerd alert moment....

November of last year, I played...or folded Alpha into mono; and it was great to hear Steve Howe's guitar work much clearer. I'm guessing a lot of Howe's guitar work (in stereo) was probably centered, while the multi layered keyboards were heavily panned right/left. Fold it, and the keys recede a bit, while the the guitar parts.....held steady.

 

I'm dying for decent sounding Pieces of Eight and Grand Illusion CDs. But when I go to Amazon, I don't know what I am looking for. Could someone please provide links or ASINs? As for Alpha, it appears in its entirety on Asia Gold and sounds pretty good to me when I blast it in my car. Does anyone disagree?

Edit: I found the upcoming Pieces of Eight AF release on Amazon. It sounds like there was a 2016 SHM of Grand Illusion people like on here, which I guess I might check out.

 

I could see (or hear) the Gold mastering working well in a traffic/car environment.

 

I'd like to be excited about both of these new A.F. releases, but if Kevin is doing them, I have to be honest and say that I'm just not nuts about his recent masterings. His self titled "Asia" and Styx "Grand Illusion" discs did not knock me out, as they are just too flat sounding for my tastes. Any of the Geffen ASIA recordings, to my ears, have always been mixed with too many highs and not enough lows, on LP or CD. Much like a Barry Manilow recording, a huge remix with heavy handed EQ fixes for these flaws are desperately needed, in my opinion. Regarding "Pieces Of Eight", I've yet to hear a good sounding CD version of that album, as again, it has always sounded somewhat empty digitally to me and nothing like the "warmth" of the vinyl versions that I've heard, especially how the A&M/Nautilus LP sounds.

Styx - Pieces Of Eight

Again (and believe me, I'm not usually a fan of heavy handed EQ, but this one needs a LOT of help) and I seriously doubt that Kevin will deliver, especially going by his latest masterings. I shouldn't knock everything that Kevin has done lately, as he did those recent Joe Jackson reissues on vinyl that are getting a lot of raves, so he can do some worthy (and better yet, needed) tweeking, if pushed by a producer!

 

It might be possible to make an incremental improvement to Alpha, but the only hope of taking it from meh to great is a remix.

That being said, a small improvement would be worth it to me and I'd like to see it include Daylight.

 

I kinda like all that reverb on Alpha.
ASIA should sound larger than life!
I just wish Howe's parts were more apparent.
Their Omega album could've used some of that reverb.

 

I'm looking forward to Alpha. I'm in that minority of Asia fans who considers it to be their best album by far, and I'm confident in Kevin's ability to make it sounds as good as he can, given the material he has to work with. However, I'm not expecting it to be a sonic masterpiece. Like the other albums, it was mixed in a non-audiophile way, and there's only so much Kevin can do. I actually like the wall of sound production on Alpha--it works better for this material (that is, more lushly symphonic pop) than that of the more rock oriented debut. I don't think Howe's guitars are mixed too low--their textures are crucial to the album's sound to me, though in keeping with the more baroque pop approach they do not dominate as much as on most rock albums (still, his solo in "Midnight Sun" is pretty spectacular). I do agree that there could be a better EQ balance--Wetton claimed that Stone experienced high frequency hearing loss around this time, and suggested that there's no real way of fixing the problem without a remix.

I wonder whether the original vinyl can be bettered--I kind of enjoy its sound through speakers, though the album always sounded kind of odd through headphones. It seems to need space for the wall of sound to spread out. Strangely, I find the opposite to be the case with the debut, where listening through speakers seems to highlight the recording's flaws more than headphones do.

 

The problem is all that reverb on Alpha does the opposite of making it sound larger than life. Instead it distances the music from the listener. Their S/T had plenty of reverb and sounded great because it was mixed properly and even though it had reverb it wasn't anywhere near the level on Alpha and that's why the S/T sounds so great.

 

Just found this on Youtube if anyone is interested. Alpha Demo's.